Modeste, Leon Edgar

(b. Aug. 19, 1926). Director of General Convention Special Program. He was born in Brooklyn, New York. Modeste received his B.A. in 1950 from Long Island University and his M.S.W. in 1953 from the Columbia University School of Social Work. He also studied at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University. Modeste taught at New York University, the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of Kentucky, the State University of New York, Medgar Evers College, and Syracuse University. Modeste belonged to numerous civic and political organizations. He was the Executive Director of the Brooklyn Urban League. When Presiding Bishop John E. Hines toured the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of New York City to study the poverty of the inner city, he asked Modeste to accompany him. Hines reported to the General Convention of 1967, which created the General Convention Special Program. Hines named Modeste the director of the Program. This was a controversial program, and the 1973 General Convention removed it from the budget. Modeste and his staff were terminated effective Dec. 31, 1973.